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I’m basically going to do three things in this post: take a look at the sizable number of “lopsided” early-season contests; compare Massey Ratings projected game scores with early lines for various games of interest; and make a list of the best opening weekend (and pre-opening weekend) matchups.

Why am I doing this? Well, why not?

Lines are courtesy of an offshore site to be named later.

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There are 136 contests in Weeks 0 and 1 that feature at least one Division I team. Among them are 44 FBS vs. FBS games; of those, 11 are games between Power-5 conference teams, 9 are Group of 5 matchups, and 24 are games in which a P5 team is playing a G5 opponent.

There are also 48 FBS vs. FCS matchups, 26 FCS vs. FCS contests, and 18 games in which FCS teams face non-D1 opposition.

Of those 136 games, 36 have an early-line spread of 30 points or more.

The breakdown of those 36 matchups:

FBS vs. FBS: 6

FBS vs. FCS: 18

FCS vs. FCS: 4

FCS vs. non-D1: 8

It’s not great that more than 26% of the D-1 games which take place prior to and through the Labor Day weekend are projected to be that one-sided. Of course, it could be argued that this is the best time for these matchups, given that the general football-loving public is starved for live gridiron action of any kind, no matter the blowout potential.

As of August 1, the largest point spread for any D-1 game in this time period is the Florida A&M-Arkansas contest on August 31, a Thursday night affair in Little Rock. The Razorbacks are favored by 51.5 points. Two games have 51-point spreads, Bethune-Cookman vs. Miami (the homestanding Hurricanes are favored, just to state the obvious) and an all-FCS matchup, Mississippi Valley State vs. North Dakota State (with the host Bison expected to prevail).

The biggest road favorite is Washington, favored by 30.5 points at Rutgers. Stanford plays Rice at a neutral site (Sydney, Australia); the Cardinal are 31.5-point favorites.

The other four FBS vs. FBS matchups with a spread of 30+ points: UTEP-Oklahoma (44 points, the largest spread in an all-FBS game), Kent State-Clemson (38.5 points), Georgia Southern-Auburn (35 points), and Akron-Penn State (33 points). To the surprise of no one, the home teams are all favored.

The other three FCS vs. FCS games with 30+ point spreads: Butler-Illinois State (36 points), Valparaiso-Montana (34 points; apologies to Adam Amin), and Delaware State-Delaware (33 points). Again, home teams are the favorites.

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In the table below, I’ve included every FBS/FCS game in Week 0 (eight games played on August 26, and one on August 27), and a sampling of contests from Week 1 (August 31 through September 4). Just to reiterate, not every D-1 game from Week 1 is listed.

The first nine games in the table are from Week 0.

Favorite

Underdog

Line

Massey

Differential

Colorado State

Oregon State

3.5

34-31

0.5

BYU

Portland State

32.5

44-13

1.5

Florida A&M

Texas Southern

1.5

26-24

-0.5

Jacksonville State

Chattanooga

6.5

28-26

4.5

Cal Poly

Colgate

7

35-31

3

USF

San Jose State

20

41-31

10

Stanford

Rice

31.5

38-7

0.5

Sam Houston State

Richmond

6.5

38-34

2.5

Hawai’i

Massachusetts

1

33-31

-1

Wake Forest

Presbyterian

39

35-0

4

Toledo

Elon

37.5

43-7

1.5

Georgia State

Tennessee State

18

38-17

-3

Arkansas

Florida A&M

51.5

52-3

2.5

Mercer

Jacksonville

21

42-21

0

Samford

Kennesaw State

7.5

38-30

-0.5

Towson

Morgan State

28

35-7

0

Oklahoma State

Tulsa

17

42-33

8

Ohio State

Indiana

20.5

31-17

6.5

Army

Fordham

15.5

40-24

-0.5

Eastern Michigan

Charlotte

12.5

35-27

4.5

Navy

Florida Atlantic

13.5

42-28

-0.5

Colorado

Colorado State

7

35-28

0

Clemson

Kent State

38.5

44-3

-2.5

Texas

Maryland

16.5

34-27

9.5

Oklahoma

UTEP

44

49-13

8

North Carolina

California

12.5

42-32

2.5

Villanova

Lehigh

6.5

28-22

0.5

Pittsburgh

Youngstown State

14

40-24

-2

North Carolina State

South Carolina

5.5

28-17

-5.5

Notre Dame

Temple

15

28-24

11

Georgia

Appalachian State

14.5

21-18

11.5

Michigan

Florida

4

24-20

0

Virginia

William and Mary

19.5

33-14

0.5

North Dakota State

Mississippi Valley State

51

52-0

-1

Texas Tech

Eastern Washington

16.5

45-38

9.5

Mississippi State

Charleston Southern

18.5

38-21

1.5

The Citadel

Newberry

30

37-7

0

Wofford

Furman

13.5

26-14

1.5

Gardner-Webb

North Carolina A&T

7

28-21

0

Baylor

Liberty

30

42-14

2

East Tennessee State

Limestone

28.5

35-7

0.5

Auburn

Georgia Southern

35

34-13

14

Air Force

VMI

31.5

41-10

0.5

Alabama

Florida State

7.5

33-21

-4.5

LSU

BYU

13

21-7

-1

Southern

South Carolina State

2.5

27-24

-0.5

Virginia Tech

West Virginia

4

29-26

1

UCLA

Texas A&M

3.5

25-28

6.5

Tennessee

Georgia Tech

3.5

31-32

4.5

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Odds (hey, a pun!) and ends:

Not listed: James Madison-East Carolina, which does not have a line at present for some reason. However, Massey projects FCS defending champ JMU to win the game 38-31.

Western Carolina’s season opener at Hawai’i also does not have a line (at least, not one that I could find), possibly because the Rainbow Warriors play a game at Massachusetts the week before.

The same is true for Coastal Carolina, which opens by hosting the aforementioned Minutemen.

Two teams in the table that are favorites (UCLA and Tennessee) are projected to lose by the Massey Ratings.

Massey projects several games to be considerably closer than the current lines, notably Appalachian State-Georgia, Maryland-Texas, Eastern Washington-Texas Tech, Temple-Notre Dame, and Tulsa-Oklahoma State.

On the other hand, Massey likes North Carolina State and Alabama even more than the offshore folks do.

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On his college basketball ratings website, Ken Pomeroy has something called ‘FanMatch’, in which “games are rated for competitiveness and level of play with a lean towards higher-scoring games”. It is a somewhat whimsical way to rate the potential watchability of individual games on a given night.

I’m going to do the same thing here. However, I am purposely not going to rate Newberry-The Citadel, which from my vantage point is the most watchable game of the Labor Day weekend.

Below is a listing of the Week 0/1 games that I consider to be the twenty best in terms of quality/competitiveness. I’ve created a secret formula to produce these game ratings; it is called “Tingle Factor”, or TF. The higher the TF, the better.

You’ve probably read or heard that Pac-10 basketball is not exactly top-of-the-line this season. I was looking through some stats this morning and was struck by just how poor the league has really been on the hardwood. It’s too much information for a Tweet, obviously, or even a regular post on a message board, so I figured I would stick it on the blog…

Last season the Pac-10 was 102-37 in non-conference play, a solid record of success that led to the conference receiving six bids to the NCAA tournament. This season, however, the Pac-10 is only 75-44 out of conference (through 1/10/10), which is a very mediocre record for a power league.

In fact, the Pac-10’s winning percentage out of league play is exceeded by both the Missouri Valley (71-32) and the Mountain West (79-38) and is roughly the same as that of the Atlantic 10 (113-70). Indeed, the Pac-10 is currently 8th in conference RPI, behind the MWC and A-10 and just ahead of the MVC.

Incidentally, when the SEC was widely (and justifiably) mocked last year for not having the usual number of NCAA-quality teams for a major conference, its non-league record was 131-51.

The Pac-10 was 16-23 last season against the other power leagues, not great but not embarrassing. This season, the league is 9-24, with none of those nine victories occurring in a “true” road game. Only one school in the conference, Arizona, has more than one win against BCS opponents.

The Wildcats have two, a neutral-site win over habitual Big XII cellar-dweller Colorado (by four points) and a home victory over ACC bottom-feeder North Carolina State (by two). Arizona has not been as successful against Mountain West squads, as it is 0-3 versus teams in that league, including a 17-point loss to San Diego State and a 30-point beatdown by BYU that was played at the McHale Center (as was a defeat at the hands of UNLV).

Losing at home by 30 is embarrassing for a proud program like Arizona, but it’s far from the worst loss this season by a Pac-10 club. That honor probably has to go to Oregon State, which last week lost 99-48 to Seattle – and that game was played in Corvallis. The Beavers have also lost to TAMU-Corpus Christi by 24 points and dropped a home game to Sacramento State. All three of those opponents, by the way, have losing records.

Oregon State followed up that hideous loss to Seattle by beating Oregon – in Eugene, no less. Oregon was 2-0 in the league following a road sweep of the Washington schools, but nobody should have been too shocked to see the Ducks blow their home opener in the league, since they had already lost at home to Montana (and have also lost to solid WCC outfits Portland and St. Mary’s, the latter setback yet another loss at McArthur Court).

Meanwhile, UCLA did the heretofore unthinkable, losing to Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State in the same season (neither Big West club currently has a winning record). Those two games were played in Anaheim, as was the Bruins’ 27-point loss to Portland.

Southern California may be the Pac-10 school that acquitted itself the best in non-conference play, having beaten Tennessee by 22 and winning a tournament in Hawaii (which included wins over St. Mary’s and UNLV). In keeping with the rest of its conference brethren, the Trojans did manage to lose at home to Loyola-Marymount.

Alas, the Trojans are now ineligible for postseason play thanks to the O.J. Mayo/Tim Floyd follies.

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With all that, the Pac-10 will struggle to be a three-bid league. It doesn’t help that the league appears on its way to not having a “tiered” group of contenders and non-contenders. Despite no team playing more than three games so far in league play, every school has at least one win and won loss in conference action. There could be a lot of 8-10, 9-9, 10-8 conference records, and that (along with Southern Cal’s self-imposed probation) could lead to the league’s worst-case scenario.

Could the Pac-10 only have one team advance to the NCAA Tournament? I doubt it, but it’s certainly not out of the question. What isn’t out of the question is that leagues like the Mountain West and Atlantic 10 (and possibly the Missouri Valley) will expect – not hope, but expect — to receive more NCAA tourney bids than the Pac-10, and deservedly so.

On Thursday afternoon the NCAA issued a press release entitled “Executive Committee adopts wagering policy”. Included was the following statement:

“No predetermined or non-predetermined session of an NCAA championship may be conducted in a state with legal wagering that is based upon single-game betting (high school, college or professional) in a sport in which the NCAA conducts a championship.”

Single-game betting is defined as wagering that involves either a money line or point-spread wager. The recommended policy would not apply to those states that may offer parlay betting, lottery tickets or sports pools/pull tabs.

What this apparently means is that effective immediately, schools in Delaware and Nevada will no longer be able to host any postseason NCAA events. This includes even those events for which they would have qualified to host by merit.

The policy change will result in the University of Delaware not being able to host an FCS playoff game. Also affected in that state is Wesley College, which has an excellent football program at the Division III level. Delaware is a perennial FCS power that has hosted 22 postseason football games, while Wesley has hosted eight Division III playoff games. The Blue Hens and Wolverines have each hosted playoff games as recently as 2007.

The University of Nevada-Reno hosted a skiing regional in March and has the capability of hosting other regionals in sports like volleyball, basketball, and baseball. The opportunity to host those regionals is now off the table for that school (as it is for UNLV).

Faring a little better than Nevada and Delaware were the state schools in Montana. There was a fear that the NCAA’s stance would also prohibit events from being held in that state, but the new policy allows sports pools (as opposed to single-game betting), so Montana avoided getting the Nevada/Delaware “treatment”. This led to a predictably mealy-mouthed response from the Montana state attorney general:

“I applaud the NCAA for coming to a commonsense conclusion that preserves Montana’s right to host playoff and tournament games,” Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock said in a prepared statement. “Montana wholeheartedly supports its student athletes. Along with the NCAA, we remain committed to protecting the integrity of collegiate sports.”

What he is really applauding, of course, is that part about Montana (or Montana State) still getting to host playoff games. He surely can’t serious in supporting the NCAA’s “commonsense conclusion”, since there isn’t anything sensible about it.

Look, I understand the NCAA’s concern about this issue. There are two points, though, that need to be made.

1) It isn’t the fault of the schools. The colleges and universities in Nevada and Delaware have nothing to do with the gambling laws in those states, and can’t do anything about those laws anyway. Why punish the student-athletes and institutions for something over which they have no control?

The NCAA presumably is hoping that this new policy will cause the politicians in the state of Delaware to reverse themselves (I can’t imagine even the NCAA thinks things will change in Nevada), but the organization has to know that losing an occasional playoff game is not going to be enough to stop the state from instituting single-game betting. The legislation passed easily in both houses of the Delaware state legislature. The state is hoping to generate more than $50 million in revenue from sports betting in the first year of implementation alone. I’m afraid a playoff game against Southern Illinois or Northern Iowa isn’t going to make that kind of cash.

A cynic might think that the NCAA is punishing its member schools in the states because, well, they are the only entities that the NCAA can punish. It’s like a version of the old Jerry Tarkanian line, “The NCAA is so mad at Kentucky it gave Cleveland State two more years of probation.”

2) There have been plenty of schools with gambling scandals from states with no state-sponsored gambling. Toledo, Northwestern, Florida, Maryland, Rhode Island, Maine, and Arizona State (just to name a few) all had serious gambling incidents involving student-athletes just in the last two decades. What Delaware is going to do won’t matter a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.

That is what really upset Nevada-Reno director of athletics Cary Groth. As she put it:

“It’s outrageous,” Groth said. “Having worked in a non-betting state, in Illinois, it was more of an issue for us to monitor betting for our student-athletes than it is here at Nevada because there’s so much more awareness (here)…All anybody has to do is get on the Internet, or pick up the phone, to place a bet (anywhere in the U.S.).”

Groth added something else, just to stir the pot a little more:

“The NCAA has become such a monopoly on so many things, it’s not right,” Groth said, adding all states affected by the ban are home to non-Bowl Championship Series schools.

I think another hot-button issue (at least, hot-button to the NCAA) is going to be affected by this policy, too. The “non-predetermined” aspect of the ban will surely come to the attention of (among others) the South Carolina chapter of the NAACP. As Tom Yeager, commissioner of the CAA, put it in an article written three weeks ago about the Delaware situation:

[Yeager compared] the wagering policy to the NCAA’s stance on South Carolina and Mississippi still flying the Confederate flag.The NCAA allows schools in those states to earn the right to host an NCAA championship event. Clemson, in South Carolina, hosted a recent baseball playoff. But the state would not be awarded a predetermined host role for a larger event, such as an NCAA basketball tournament regional.

Yeager argued that the wagering policy should not be any more stern.

“We continue to support the stand the NCAA has taken but also recognize that member institutions really aren’t part of a fight and shouldn’t be disadvantaged when having earned the right to host [NCAA] games on their campuses,” Yeager said.

It’s hard to argue with Yeager’s last point in particular (member institutions are just bystanders when it comes to these issues). It’s also not unreasonable to suggest that if the NCAA is going to ban hosting even when merited for the likes of Delaware State or UNLV, the same principle presumably should apply to Mississippi State or Clemson. The fact that there are four BCS schools in those two states may or may not be a factor.

You can bet there will be more to come on that front.

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There are other aspects of this issue that need to be addressed (will the NCAA continue to sanction the Las Vegas Bowl?), but the bottom line is that here again we have an NCAA policy that will mostly, if not entirely, only affect its member institutions and its student-athletes in a negative manner. I’m not sure who in the organization thought it was a good idea. I only hope that, like the Andy Oliver case, it comes back to bite the NCAA in a major way.